Forgotten

Stoop,
where you sit in silent study
and ponder the fine print of life. 

From your steel throne,
ensconced on a city street,
shore up your creaking bridge.

Your heart
smarts,
in a body that shivers,
from shade to sunlight.

Sleeping in the sanctuary
of a borrowed street.
Suffering the fire
that singed your soul
and left you,
forgotten.

Lost to the dawns and dusks
of another drink.
Drowned in the darkness of deceit,
you battle on.
Your mind,
a muddled inferno.

Your kingdom,
overflowing from a trolley.
Sagging,
a sack,
on the thief's cross.

You steal your dreams
on city sidewalks,
craving comfort,
crouched,
in the crotch of humanity.

Baffled years,
in mumbled monologues.
Your memory mocks you,
with its migrant mores.

How often then,
the 'lama sabachthani?'
How many times,
the tortured cries?
'My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?'

Life's battles
lost and won.
Our wars rage on.
Tomorrow none of us will stay alive

If today we again do nothing.